Clear Edit Text - adb

Question

How to clear focused Edit text using shell command.

I tried

adb shell input keyevent KEYCODE_CLEAR // Not worked 
adb shell input keyevent KEYCODE_DEL // Delete only one char
adb shell input keyevent KEYCODE_FORWARD_DEL // Not worked

With this I am only able to delete upto One character only, Is there any way I can delete/clear the focused Edit text.

Solution 1

This works for me:

function clear_input() {
    adb shell input keyevent KEYCODE_MOVE_END
    adb shell input keyevent --longpress $(printf 'KEYCODE_DEL %.0s' {1..250})
}

Then:

clear_input

Solution 2

If you use uiautomator(https://github.com/xiaocong/uiautomator), you could do this by:

1. tap the EditText widget to get focus, then

2. use device(focused=True).clear_text() to clear the view, or by device(focused=True).set_text("new text") to set a new text.

Solution 3

The only way that I have found so far is to get the proper coordinates to use input swipe x y x y duration to simulate a long press. This will then highlight all the text in the EditText field. You can then send the keys you want to replace what was there.

I just wish that adb shell input keyevent KEYCODE_CLEAR would clear all the text in the field. That would make things so much easier, if someone can find a better way that would be great.